I thought my video response phase was done after one episode, but… no. Tito Ferradans here for you
again. How are you doing, friends? Ready to dive into some more intense anamorphic misconceptions?
Last Monday, Studio Binder - the production management software company - released a video on
“What is Anamorphic?” in their channel. You can imagine my surprise to find some of my own shots
in there. I’m not stingy when people take my stuff, but I do get upset when they don’t ask
or at least give proper credit. So we filed a copyright claim and took the video down.
For the Anamorphic Cookbook I use clips from all over the place but they always have a tag letting
people know where to find the original. Studio Binder uses my clips on a video full of mistakes.
But instead of just being angry, Iet’s objectively address the issues in StudioBinder’s video.
If you’re as passionate as I am,
join the channel for a lot more content that you unlock right now.
Studio Binder’s video essay about anamorphics opens with a big establishing shot from Blade
Runner. This one and all other VFX shots in Blade Runner were actually shot on 65mm
spherical. This shot may set a moody tone but it is falling on its face right out of the gate
in terms of showcasing their concept of anamorphic vs spherical.
On their merits, Studio Binder’s analysis of the lens choices for Wolf of Wall Street,
mixing anamorphic and spherical is great and a good explanation on creative lensing.
These graphics for lens distortion are also super cool! If we look at the animations and attention
to detail overall, this video has great production value and it *could be* a great learning tool!
And here’s one of my shots! It fits right in, doesn’t it?
Not to be pedantic, but circles and spheres are not the same thing.
There’s a whole third dimension to it that we’re missing out with “circular elements”.
Then we see a sample of The Robe, and there are two issues here. First and foremost,
The Robe is squished, and this is how it’s actually supposed to look.
Two, there were other anamorphic films before, just not in Hollywood. The French short “To Build
a Fire” from 1927 is the first actual recorded use of anamorphics in film for a wider screen.
After those two errors, we segue straight into squeeze factors presented in the most incorrect
way. 1:3? 1:33? 2:0? Why are these written like ratios? I’m sure they meant 1.3x, 1.33x, 1.8x
and 2x. Aspect ratios are an entirely different thing and it’s important not to conflate the two.
Unfortunately this is a very common misconception,
that more glass is more bad. That every piece of glass you add to your
system makes performance worse. It’s a false idea and a lot of people still cling to it.
This is enough subject for an entire video, so I’ll leave it at this here:
are you trying to say that a Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 photo lens, with 7 elements is better and/or
cleaner than a Leica Summilux C cinema lens with 18 to 22 elements, because “it has less glass”?
Or, is the argument that much older lens designs are better, like the Petzval lens,
which uses four elements? Here’s some samples taken with Lomography’s redesigned Petzval. Would
you say this is sharp, undistorted performance because it’s spherical AND it has less glass?
What does this even mean? Anamorphics use cylindrical glass.
When looking through the front of an anamorphic lens,
you see an oval picture because of this squeeze. But the elements are NOT ovals themselves.
“Light has a straight path through spherical lenses” and “an irregular path on anamorphics”.
I don’t even know what to say here. For real. Let’s just look at these animations
again because they are kind of cute, then erase this idea of our minds.
- Can we add something of more substance here?
Sure! Let’s borrow something from John Hess at Filmmaker IQ to help us.
In his video “The History and Science of Lenses” John actually builds several little
lens examples. None of them anamorphic, mind you, but you can see lots of crazy reflections
coming off the elements as they move around. So sphericals also have lots of light kicking around.
Later John explains those reflections caused big losses in light transmission
So by the time anamorphics start rolling around in the 50’s and 60’s, the industry
is already tackling this stray light. So, looking at this animation, it looks like we’re tracing
the lightrays on the first one, then tracing reflections on the second one. Different things.
Alright, let’s talk about bokeh.
Uhhh. That’s a flare. Not bokeh.
I’m sure you’ve shot with non-rectilinear wide-angles before
Laowa came around. Are you saying those are less spherical lenses? Have you seen a GoPro
distortion? Is that not spherical? Distortion per se has to do more with optical design
than with anamorphic or spherical. What most anamorphics have, regarding distortion,
is a non-linear factor across the frame, which makes them extra tough to work
in post-production. Sure, it also makes the lines go bendy towards the edges.
Going into “Falloff”, which is just a word, if not used to describe anything. All lenses have light
falloff towards the edges for example, but what they’re talking about here is “Focus falloff”,
which is most common with adapters, vintage anamorphics,
SLR Magic’s rangefinder and cheap DIY focusers.
Again, we have 65mm spherical footage of Blade Runner to describe something
“softer”, which is pretty sharp to me. Plus you can totally see the non-anamorphic lens flares
here. Back to focus falloff, sphericals have that too, as you can see in these test shots
using rehoused Bausch and Lomb Baltar lenses from 1930’s, or, again, if we look at the
earlier Petzval design, in which the focus falloff is considered a feature, not a bug.
Studio Binder says:
Again, incorrect, but I can see why you’d think that. Vignetting is a big issue with anamorphic adapters.
Adapters, but the examples used look more like the lenses aren’t covering the entire imaging
area - such as using a MFT lens on a S35 sensor, like what’s happening on this Vazen 28mm test
shot. The vignette is not from the “anamorphic” lens, it’s from the fact that this lens is not
made to cover this big of a sensor - although it *almost* does. In situations like this,
cinematographers might choose to embrace the vignetting as part of the look, but it’s
definitely not that it comes from anamorphics, you can get the same from sphericals too.
When they say anamorphic flares are created
by the additional glass in anamorphics, and that these flares are less prominent
in sphericals - because of less glass, then you’re trying my nerves. Anamorphics don’t imply flares.
As shown in the Cookbook, front anamorphics create streak flares, while middle or rear anamorphics
don’t. Studio Binder uses footage of John Wick’s motorcycle chase to showcase anamorphic flares.
Fun fact, John Wick 2 was shot using ARRI’s Master Anamorphics
which flare so little, the DP, Laustsen had to use a streak filter to get them to flare.
Again, lots of sphericals flare like crazy too.
Just look at anything Russian! Or the Baltars again.
This is another can of worms and a common
misconception. When using an identical focal length and camera placement,
to match the vertical framing, bokeh on anamorphics is actually
*smaller* than spherical, because of compression.
But if we’re talking about matching the frame horizontally, then we could be a bit closer
to the truth. For example, here’s a shot on a 21mm spherical, with top and bottom cropped off.
Then, a matching (or almost) matching shot on an 40mm anamorphic lens. Now I’m using a longer
focal length in anamorphic, but only because I’m discarding a massive part of my spherical framing.
It boils down to if we are matching the height or the
width of the “original” frame we’re comparing to!
Do they mean that in general? I get it if we’re comparing the same focal lengths, but again, in the
cine lens world we can talk about Atlas, making anamorphics at $10k and Leica, making bigger,
heavier and pricier sphericals. This is a very dangerous generalization that doesn’t help anyone.
Alright, that’s correct.
Here are my shots again! Anamorphic diopters
don’t exist. Diopters are auxiliary lenses (but also get called filters a lot)
and they are very useful when shooting anamorphic, but they are NOT anamorphic.
They’re also useful for getting closer when shooting spherical without a macro lens.
This should be it. I think I addressed everything. If you wanna help me counter misinformation about
anamorphics, this is a good video to share with your cinematographer and camera friends.
Ah ah! Before I go, there’s still this gem here, and I’d love to hear your
thoughts about it in the comments below.
What do they mean by softer and rougher? Those are pretty much opposite words!
Join the channel to hear more about anamorphics,
or just share the video and help me get the info out there! Thank you so much for hanging
out and I hope you learned something cool here today. Tito Ferradans, out.